What to Watch: How Barkley’s mouth helps the Spurs win the West

“He (Popovich) doesn’t want the accolades,” TNT analyst Steve Kerr told reporters in a conference call previewing the NBA Western Conference finals. “Most of that is just the fact that San Antonio is a small market and the team, there’s never a whole lot of drama.”

“They are a machine and that’s the way Pop likes it,” Kerr added. “He actually enjoys not being out in the spotlight all the time.”

Not seeking the spotlight means the Spurs have fewer things to distract them and concentrate on the game plan. But, the lack of selfish chest-thumping has sent the media scrambling to find some drama to punch up the series storyline.

Since there’s been no real trash-talking, bulletin board material coming from either the Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder, anyone care to guess where attention has shifted to?

If you answered Charles Barkley, you are correct.

Barkley’s comments about the Alamo City have been fodder all week on sport talk radio. Clear Channel Communications, based here, welcomed Sir Charles to town via their digital billboards.

Even our town’s mayor, Julián Castro, has gotten in on the dissing Barkley act with a YouTube video, wearing four Spurs championship rings and featuring the Chuckster in drag and his lousy golf game.

Is Barkley this broadcast era’s equivalent of Howard Cosell? Cosell never played the game. Barkley has. Sir Charles also has the respect of his peers with the 2011 Sports Emmy Award for outstanding studio show analyst to back up his mouth.

The last three seasons Barkley has teased San Antonians, most notably about the size of its women, the River Walk (calling it a dirty little creek) and the Alamo by asking why visit a place where everybody wound up dead?

OK, this writer sees the humor of it all. But so has most of San Antonio, judging by the phone calls sports radio stations KTKR-AM 760 and KZDC-AM 1250 took all week. Local sports show hosts Jason Minnix, Ari Temkin and Mike Taylor all agreed with their listeners, classifying Barkley’s comments as shtick.

Yeah, it is shtick. Is San Antonio a “fat” city — speaking for myself, a Meatless Monday meal would do me well; The Alamo is no different from a Civil War battleground and S.A.’s River Walk existed way longer before Oklahoma City’s did — so there.

In fairness, Old Spice has ranked San Antonio as one of the sweatiest cities in the United States — No. 2 in 2009 and 2010, just behind No. 1 Phoenix (Barkley’s old stomping ground). That survey uses average summer temperatures, not body mass, to justify their rankings.

This paper is trying where it can to make a few bucks off Barkley’s bravado. Castro’s YouTube video was a Page A1 story on Saturday’s print edition — it was below the fold, though.

There are two things that aren’t shtick. First is Barkley messing up the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard’s name. For some reason, Barkley keeps flubbing Leonard’s first name, calling him “Kwame” instead of Kawhi.

Second, since the All-Star break, Barkley has supported the Spurs, saying they would win the Western Conference.

Bulletin board material fans may care about came on May 20, the night the Spurs swept the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western semifinals.

“This team is going to win the NBA Championship,” Barkley said. “They are the team to beat in the NBA and it’s going to be very difficult for any team to beat them.”

Broadcast notes

Bienvenidos TNT: All Western Conference finals games are exclusively on TNT. Marv Albert, Steve Kerr and Reggie Miller will call all the games with Craig Sager reporting.

Pregame and postgame shows will be on-site. Ernie Johnson anchors “NBA Tip-Off” with analysts Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal before each game. The foursome return after the game with the award-winning “Inside the NBA” postgame show.

Just my opinion, TNT should use the NBA Forever tease to start their Western Finals coverage, just like ESPN on ABC does with its’ NBA Finals history tease.

Thinking locally: Fox Sports Southwest offers a half-hour postgame wrap-up show each night of the Spurs-Thunder series. Ric Renner anchors with Andrew Monaco reporting. Depending on the game night, FSSW’s postgame show may be available to cable/satellite subscribers with the FSSW Plus feed.
On the radio side, all games can be heard on WOAI-AM 1200, the Spurs’ flagship station with Bill Schoening handling the play-by-play duties. The pregame show starts 30 minutes before tipoff and “SportsTalk San Antonio’s” Mike Taylor hosts Spurs GameTime React on WOAI-AM 1200 following the games.
KCOR-AM 1350 has the Spanish-language broadcast with Paul Castro calling the action.